Warangal: Several students of different colleges staged a rasta roko at Nayeemnagar on Wednesday after a BSc final year student T. Ravali was set ablaze by a fellow student P. Sai Anvesh. Citizens and student organisations joined in the sit-in demonstration on the Warangal–Karimnagar road. The protesters demanded that Anvesh be punished with ‘encounter killing’ for being so cruel to the girl.
An ABVP activist Kiran Kumar said the assailant must be killed in an encounter without showing any mercy. “Giving the accused a chance in the name of law does not serve justice. He must be treated as cruelly as he behaved with the girl. Strict laws against those committing crimes against women have failed to stop these kind of incidents. He must be meted out with the most painful death punishment”, he said.
Some of the students blamed the police for not installing CCTV cameras in the area even though they were aware of the presence of several girls’ hostels in the area. “The police have not taken any steps for the security of the girl students living in the area. Police seldom visit the lanes in which the hostels are located. The SHE teams and patrolling units are never seen in the area. Boys and girls roam around on the roads at night as the ones who run the hostels do not have any kind of monitoring”, complained Shabana Azmi, a student.
Health minister Etela Rajender who said that the state would take care of the treatment to be given to the girl. He also assured that strict punishment would be given to the accused Anvesh.
Meanwhile, the police have booked the accused under sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 354 D (stalking) of IPC. A similar incident had taken place in 2008 when an assailant S. Srinivasa Rao attacked a girl Swapnika of KITS college with acid after she rejected his proposal. The girl and her friend were seriously injured and later Swapnika succumbed to her injuries. The accused and his two other associates were killed in an encounter in the city’s outskirts.
